House Republicans Fight Back on Immigration

Sixteen House Republicans have written a letter to President Obama, expressing their opposition to “comprehensive immigration reform” of the sort that the president has championed, and that has passed the Senate. They oppose the Senate legislation, or anything like it, for the best of reasons: it will drive down wages and devastate America’s working class. Unless the law of supply and demand has been repealed–maybe Obama thinks he can do that, too, by executive fiat?–they are indisputably correct. Here is the letter, signed by Mo Brooks, Lou Barletta, Kerry Bentivolio, Tom Cotton, Walter Jones, Phil Gingrey, Michele Bachmann, John Fleming, Steve King, Ted Yoho, Joe Wilson, Lamar Smith, Steve Stockman, Steven Palazzo, Jeff Duncan and Mike Rogers. Click to enlarge:

The letter does a superb job of summing up the most important case against comprehensive immigration reform. The issue highlights how confused modern liberalism has become. The Democrats are pushing to raise the minimum wage, while simultaneously advancing immigration legislation that will drive wages down, not up. At the same time, they are whining about income inequality. But what do they think importing 30 million unskilled workers into our economy will do? Obviously, it will greatly increase the number of those who are stuck at the bottom of the heap, with little chance of moving up.

If you are a Democratic Congressman, maybe all of this makes sense: if the economy is a train wreck, many more people will be dependent on government programs, and millions of new unskilled workers are likely to be Democratic voters. But if you are anyone else, the Democrats’ witches’ brew of perverse policies are a disaster.